Funeral procession on May 22 of two Catholic priests and 17 worshippers allegedly killed by Fulani herdsmen in April during a Sunday service.

Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka has charged President Muhammadu Buhari to cry out for help from the international community to stem the killings by herdsmen which he, yesterday, described as ethnic cleansing.

“Let’s not play around with the euphemisms. It’s no other word but ethnic cleansing. There’s no other definition for what has been going on here. And it’s very sad to me personally to see that a nation like Nigeria, with so much human talent, has failed to learn the lesson of the history of places like Rwanda. “It happened in Europe, ethnic cleansing in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and elsewhere, so it’s not a new phenomenon. And, therefore, we should have been able to learn from the experiences of others and stopped this thing before it became an epidemic which is what it is today.

“People are dying, this government cannot cope, please just ask for international help and I know they’re ready and willing to come to our aid.’

The state’s Governor Ortom in his response, said the recent events in the state were a combination of ethnic cleansing and jihad.

“Oh my God, dear daddy and mommy, you’ve voted in thieves!” /“Daddy and Mommy, is it possible that you voted in thieves?

UPDATE

The sorry and scary situation which could have Nigeria and the masses divested of Nigeria’s performing assets if strident calls for sell-them-off from Nigerians’ Ọgas at the Top persist brings to mind this essay written in 2006 during Obasanjo’s presidency, a time that, rather than go away, has continued to fester. It was classified under GOVERNANCE STYLE THAT SCREAMS CRIME SYNDICATE – was first written for The Comet on Sunday in January 2006 . TOLA, September 22, 2016.

EXCERPTS

Non-Yoruba readers should pardon what may appear to be lack of sensitivity. A title that would do justice to this essay just happens to be a protest chorus I heard not too long ago. I will attempt to translate the title into English; the essay, too, should make the title clearer.

A couple of years ago as I typed in my work area at home, I heard a strange protest chorus which immediately drew me to a window that often affords me a view of the goings-on at Elizabeth Road near the Ibadan [Nigeria, Nigeria Television Authority] NTA. It was a protest following a recent “removal of subsidy” on petroleum, and able-bodied young men took to the streets to register their protest. As they jogged, many half dressed and most carried nothing in their hands but a lot of pain in their hearts, a chorus was repeated over and over again – like rap – to a near musical beat of 4-4 (Common Time)

Daddy, Mommy/ ‘as’ole l’e d’ibo fun!

Yoruba readers can understand that the adapted title justifies a question mark with my substituting the letter ‘b’ for the Yoruba ‘ṣ’ (sh), changing those young men’s plaintive cries from “Oh my God, dear daddy and mommy, you’ve voted in thieves!” to “daddy and mommy, is it possible that you voted in thieves?

To the National Assembly, we head for a look-see at the voracious appetite of this group of Nigeria’s rulers: a vote of N1.5 billion – that is US dollars 11.4 million – for meat pi(l)es, soft drinks and the like in the ’06 budget. The COMET of December 28 [2005] put it well:

“Food vendors, seem set for a bountiful harvest next year: lawmakers plan to spend N1.482 billion on refreshment and meals.”

While it would be at least some relief if the money filters down to flour manufacturers, meat pie and assorted snack makers, etcetera, skeptics like me do not foresee a bonanza for graduates of catering institutes. No, I am not disputing the fact that we will continue to see increase in disfigurement of legislators’ forms: disappearing necks; non-kwashiokor distended stomachs; rapid breathing brought about by non-exercise in spite of over-rich diet, etcetera. Foreign economies, rather than ours, may be the beneficiaries.

After voting a billion and a half for snacks, twelve billion for transportation; two billion for materials & supplies; almost N800 million on postage and courier, Reps will spend app. N370m on medical and N208m on fuel and lubricants. The Senate has earmarked about N1.5 billion for consultancy and professional services and over a billion each is earmarked for “unforeseen” expenses for both bodies. What could still be “unforeseen”? (Ta)b’ole l’a d’ibo fun (Did WE vote in thieves)?

I was asked recently about this column’s constant reference to ‘Nigeria, Inc.’ Below are excerpts from “Nigeria, Inc.”, April 2003:

“ … Nigeria, Inc. which LOOKS to the world like any other giant corporation, … is not structured like normal organizations. At the top of this contraption, instead of a chairman of the board, sits a disparage group: most elected /lawmakers’; most retired armed forces personnel of General rank, some traditional and religious leaders of the reactionary stripes AND the multinational oil producers.

There are no executive or non-executive directors. These, and the next group of “stakeholders” or “investors” as they describe themselves, are all directors. It is made up of not less than 99 percent of other politicians, most retired armed services officers of any rank, most civil servants above level ten, customs officers of ALL ranks, and many others too numerous to list. Please note that ‘politicians’ are not only the elected men and women but the party organizers, the so-called money bags who get deliveries of more bags from ‘Ghana must go round’ weekly, monthly or quarterly as returns on their “investments.” … Then, there are those who muscle their ways into the group by sheer braggadocio: men and women “leaders” switching parties with “followers” they have not.

Below these directors in a uniquely-Nigerian “service to the people” … set-up are those on the outside, looking in, the junior civil servants, the lower-ranked armed services personnel and party thugs. … ALL policemen … shamelessly extort money or kill those unwilling to pay.

Well, let’s take a quick look inside … ‘Nigeria, Inc.’ whose focus, like all properly-run corporations, is RETURNS to shareholders. … I’ve also heard of local government chairmen, party ‘leaders’ and councilors sitting down after getting allocations from the Federation Account – not to see which of the Local Government Area needs should be met – but to share in the proportions laid down from party headquarters. Mind you, this is AFTER the governor would have taken his SHARE. Yeah, it IS unconstitutional but does that matter?

Anyway, that seems to be sane compared to the out and out in-your-face preparation to sharing in Oyo … In a three-page SOS … to the PDP chairman in the Sunday Tribune of March 9, one of the investors, pardon me, directors, called on Chief Ogbeh not to “forget that I still have the party structure under my ambit and my credentials are still intimidating …” While I, like most of us housewives and market women may not know the meaning of “still have the party structure under my ambit …” those better educated in our group of “not in Nigeria, Inc.” will remember that the Latin word, ambire, meaning ‘to go round’ is used in the right context (as in ‘Ghana-must-go-round’ – a type of itinerant bag once used by Ghanaians when the Nigerian govt used them as scapegoats and expelled them ), and know the implications of the following from Alhaji Yekini Adeojo’s three-page eat-your-hearts-out you who are not in Nigeria, Inc.:

To read the whole of this illuminating essay that has apparently gone nowhere, check olethieves

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2016. 3:07 p.m. [GMT]

]]>https://emotanafricana.com/2016/09/22/calls-for-sale-of-nigerias-assets-reminds-me-of-mommy-daddy-abole-le-dibo-fun-tola-adenle/feed/0emotanSelling Nigeria’s oil, the refineries, gas … in calls by Dangote, Nigeria’s Senate president, the Central Bank Gov. & others, is looting by another name – Tola Adenlehttps://emotanafricana.com/2016/09/22/selling-nigerias-oil-the-refineries-gas-in-calls-by-dangote-nigerias-senate-president-the-central-bank-gov-others-is-looting-by-another-name-tola-adenle/
https://emotanafricana.com/2016/09/22/selling-nigerias-oil-the-refineries-gas-in-calls-by-dangote-nigerias-senate-president-the-central-bank-gov-others-is-looting-by-another-name-tola-adenle/#respondThu, 22 Sep 2016 15:05:22 +0000http://emotanafricana.com/?p=30186If we do not do it now, generations and generations yet unborn would not forgive us because most of the 300 million people in Nigeria 20 years from now would, in the word of a brother-in-law who is an engineer: “be ordered off the streets by the looters of today and their children into their palatial homes to come in and work for food.”!

When I wrote and posted “It’s immoral for Dangote, buyer of many govt-owned companies, to suggest sale of Nigeria Liquified Gas Co. even “be it [to] Chinese – “, on Sunday, September 18, little did I know in which the direction the story would unfold. Since then,there has been a lot of arguments, including experts’ and knowledgeable Nigerians’ opinions on why it does not make sense for a family to start selling the family’s jewelries, china and other properties to raise cash for the here-and-now.

I was so surprised that in the middle of apparently scared-as-hell-finance minister campaigning for “special emergency powers” for the president one day, she, the Central Bank’s governor, the Budget and Planning minister and Information minister would, a few days later, be euphoric about “the president having a good plan ready, the worst of the recession is over …”!

The strange utterances and language of a central governor was noted in an essay I posted just two days ago; I’m still troubled by Emefiele’s careless and shallow words: Nigeria’s recession: discordant notes from Buhari’s key economic “managers”:

“I repeat, the worst is over, the Nigerian economy is on the path of recovery and growth. “Trust me, if you are standing as a bystander, you are losing by being a bystander. Join the train now before the bus leaves the bus station. – Emefiele, Governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank

Now, it seems to have all come together as an apparent grand design orchestrated to deceive the Nigerian people while getting ready to pounce.

Aliko Dangote, who has done very well for himself – thank you all very much for Osogbo Rolling Mill, Cement factories … – sounded what to me was an immoral call by asking Nigeria to sell off the NLNG “even be it [to] Chinese”… It led to the first in a series of essay on the subject posted here just on Sunday.

Now, with six assets – Nigeria’s greatest – set to be sold off to those with deep pockets, Nigeria, Inc. is set to take over what looters did not finish off under politicians and civil servants since return to civil rule under Shagari..

By the way, I find it bizarre that Bukola Saraki,who supposedly has a case – his wife also reportedly does – at Nigeria’s Economic & Fin. Crimes Commission (EFCC) is not only sitting pretty hobnobbing with all the country’s powerful people as Nigeria’s Senate president while his case(s) has/have gone into limbo probably never to surface again despite the supposed “adjournment”?

No wonder, his first duty after the recess this week was, in his own mind, to -sort of – lead a “Charge of the Light Brigade” at the NA where he was oratorical about how to turn Nigeria’s fortune around, telling other “lawmakers” how he had been conferring with people in his Kwara Constituency before coming to the momentous decision: sell assets if we must end the recession. Really?

Millions of Nigerians know Saraki (and his family, led by his late father) as never having led any fight – real or metaphorical – to free Nigeria from the depth of woes to which it has remained since independence. In fact, to hundreds of thousands of his countrymen who were stripped of life savings by the family-owned Society General and nothing ever happened.

Now he’s playing on a bigger scale where he has wangled his way to the Senate’s presidency even though he’s a johnny-comes-lately/johnny just come to the ruling APC. The old fox, Dr. Abubakar Saraki, senate’s president under the less-corrupt-than-modern-Nigerian government of Shagari must be smiling in awe at his son. No, that’s not original; I’ve used various versions of it multiple times on this blog.

Presidency of Nigeria’s Senate, perhaps, is the world’s most lucrative government position just as Nigeria’s politicians elected to make laws are supposed to be the highest-paid in the world.

Remember:

Osogbo Rolling Mill might have been ruined but it had massive infrastructure that became Dangote’s, infrastructure, alone, that were worth a fortune;

How about a sitting president [Obasanjo) taking a bank loan to initiate Transcorp which has bought up a sizeable chunk of Nigeria’s public companies and was reportedly awarded oil blocks by the government of a supposed corruption fighter?

“Melo l’a ma ka l’eyin Adepele? … like one with more than 32 teeth (impossible?)”

Below is THE list of assets The Vultures have already circled around many times to view, and continue to circle, waiting to pounce the moment they know Nigerians have be come too weary to continue a fight.

Honestly, I am very very sorrowful reading this news,how can any sensible human being be contemplating selling off Nigerian oil assets simply because oil is selling at $50 dollars per barrel. Was oil made to be sold only at $100 ,if buhari is anything near integrity and sincerity, the first thing he should have done is to operate a lean government by cutting down on all government overheads and recurrent expenditures. Let buhari propose a bill to reduce ministries to maximum 18 and appoint only 18 ministers with every zone producing 3. Again let government reduce their work force to the barest minimum by digitalizing and computerizing all offices ,departments and businesses of government.

If government can reduce the monthly salary structure of FG by half ,through downsizing and weeding off of non essential staffs,then buhari must prune down his size of office and reduce the advisers and special assistants to not more than 15, then reduce NASS to one house ,Nigeria would be on a good road to recovery.

If buhari can’t manage this economy, let him take babangidas example and step aside and wait for that time when oil price will go back to $120 before he will recontest for the presidency. Only a prodigal son shall contemplate selling his fathers assets because of bad market ,no reasonable and sensible human being will ever think of such.buhari have shown that he lacks the capacities to steer Nigeria to safety,so I suggest that he step aside for a better person to try.

This is the way to turn Nigeria Islamic Nation by selling it’s oil assets and everybody with it (even all Christians) now definitely it is a plan, the hidden agenda of President Buhari and northern region is coming out openly under the sun. This is a conspiracy theory by the President Buhari, Senate President, Saraki, and Dangote.

Remember Dangote’s wealth as the richest African man is part of more Northern Arm Generals investment savings from share holders Government money stolen from oil in South East and South-South. And now instead of restructuring, Dangote and Co. want’s to buy the whole Nigeria to shot us up.

I believe the Northerners (lslam) is indirectly calling and preparing for war not peace. I say buyer be beware because the oil belong to the land of the Biafrans and we should start by selling the gold mines in the North and River Benue. This can not happen because Nigerian are not fools, and moreover, it is mathematically wrong to sell anything to someone that will pay with stolen government money and gets the whole thing free like former President Obasanjo, and government gets nothing($0), the worst corruption in the history of the planet by the Northerners.

We need to recover what was stolen from the government not reward the thieves with nations assets and investment.

No waiting for unions to lead strikes; the leaders have mastered how to cut deals from government, including getting houses abroad as was widely rumored during the Iweala/Lagarde ambush of Nigerians on “oil subsidy”;

No need to stand in harm’s and arms’ ways: stay home till Buhari hears loud and clear that we’ve all had more than enough and will not take it any more;

I am sure staying home for two weeks BY EVERYBODYwould solve it faster than strikes that have, time and time again, proved ineffective. It works everywhere in the world, and would have in Nigeria a few years ago but people who had been told to stock up on food items started grumbling.

If we do not do it now, generations and generations yet unborn would not forgive us because most of the 300 million people in Nigeria 20 years from now would, in the word of a brother-in-law who is an engineer: “be ordered off the streets by the looters of today and their children into their palatial homes to come in and work for food.”!

IT IS NOW IN THE HANDS AND COURT OF EVERY NIGERIAN TO SAY ‘NO’ to what would be the final nail in their enslavement by the ruling few.

Nigerians do not need to rely on unions or whatever to let those who have lined up to buy the common wealth for less than the song they will pay, have their way.

The total remittance for the period of 2011 to June 2015 was ₦3,494,675,032,256.

But PREMIUM TIMES’ analyses of the figures revealed that for 2012 and 2013, the sums of ₦143,069,400,000 and ₦80,999,973,000 were not captured in the report either as amounts paid into FAAC or withheld by NNPC.

This mystery continued in 2014 and 2015 as ₦85,601,900,000 and ₦13,908,374,982 were also unreported either as amount paid into FAAC or withheld by NNPC.

Naturally, the amount paid into Federation account and that withheld by NNPC should equal the crude oil revenue for each year. But that was not the case with the OAGF report.

“If I can turn down N400 million for the presidency that I do not need any new car because of the economy, I can’t see the National Assembly spending that N47 billion to buy cars, on top of transport allowance they collect … I have to revisit that story. The budget for their transport allowance comes up to a N100 billion. With the kind of money that goes into the National Assembly, we have to look at it conscientiously and see how we can live within our means.”

Muhammadu Buhari, President of Nigeria – on the madness at Nigeria’s National Assembly

Nigeria’s so-called “lawmakers”, a.k.a. “sin-nators” & “legis-looters, led by Bukola Saraki at the “progressive” APC-controlled Senate have asked the Nigerian people to go jump into whichever body of water is closest to their various domains: the Atlantic and Lagoons for Lagosians; the Lagoon for Ondo & Ijebu Waterside; the Niger and Benue for Middlebelters who live near them; the Creeks for the Riverine areas, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera

IF –

Nigerians are not pleased with these self-awarded transportation budget of utter destruction of a country they swore to serve.

Nigerians believe that a tree [Buhari] can make a forest in bringing change, in the fight against the same practices that contributed to the utter ruin of Jonathan’s government.

Nigerians think the entrenched interests that goaded Jonathan on and saw to the economic ruin Nigeria witnessed in the last few years without their rising and saying loud enough to shatter the silence of complacency that is set to ruin ALL except those who have looted enough to last their descendants for generations.

Danger is here!

A ti gbé, o!! – We are in big mess/trouble/hole … !!

Ẹ GBÀ WÁ, O!!! – Pl- e- a- s-e, save us!!!

120 units of Toyota Land Cruiser, 2016 modelwith the following specifications

“American Brand, V8, VXR, 5.7, Auto Engine WITH INTELLIGENCE”.

with integrated navigator cruise control, QI-Compatible wireless charging and Kinetic dynamic suspension system, as well as being “full option”.

Former PDP-reactionary but born-again APC “progressive”, Saraki, and Deputy, former & present fellow traveler Ike Ekweremadu, EACH wants IN ADDITION:

a 2016 model Mercedes Benz S550,

four 2016 Toyota Prado jeeps,

four 2016 Toyota Hilux SS (Auto) and

a 2016 model Toyota Hiace Bus EACH,

FOR THEIR CONVOYS

OKAY, THE HOUSE OF REPS’ “lawmakers”, a.k.a. “legislooters also say, gimme, gimme:

two Mercedes Benz S550, 2016 Model; V8, 4.6L Twin Turbo; Full Option ( Treated). An engineer familiar with automobiles told us that the description “treated” means the car should be bullet proof.

These people are determined to conserve Nigerians into vast few plantations owned by people who shop in Nigerian supermarkets using hard currencies;

” ” Nigeria perpetually a country that will never become a nation;

Nigerians must rise, and with one voice tell APC, PDP, APGA, and all the other alphabet-parties which are about the same, to listen to Buhari; to listen to the anguish of the masses; to listen to what everybody is saying about Nigeria, including the clownish Trump of the USA who, definitely has a point in saying it aloud that our people need re-colonization because of the mind-boggling corruption stories emanating out of Nigeria.

We must say, No, we reject what you all have made our country, “a crime syndicate masquerading as a nation!!!

May 2016 be the year when Nigerians will finally say, enough is enough. We want leadership, not looting; we want lawmakers, not law-breakers; we want equity, not broad-day robbery of the wealth that belongs to millions to be spent on purchasing expensive foreign homes that are just for show to fellow looters and then locked up; we want our youth to be not only employable through quality education but also the financing of infrastructure that would provide employment for youth.

May this New Year be your year, OUR year, our country’s year. A better and happy New Year, Nigerians.

We have nothing to lose – to borrow a saying that I’ve twisted quite a bit – but the clamp that these people have put on Nigerians’ collective neck IF we challenge their self-entitled actions.

Reference to this story – the portions written in blue & red – are all from PREMIUM TIMES.

I would like to congratulate Dr. Goke Adegoroye on the publication of his compendium in two volumes: Governance in Nigeria, Vol. 1 – The Civil Service Pathway and Vol. 2 – Leadership and Political Will. Through this book and his memoirs, Beyond Yours Faithfully (published in 2010), he has followed the footsteps of some retired higher civil servants at the regional/state and federal levels who have published books that have contributed to our understanding of the work of administration in Nigeria.

Adegoroye’s compendium is sharply focused on the machinery of government at the federal level with attention to both the structuring and staffing of the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) of the civil service in particular and the broader public service (federal government agencies and parastatals) in general.

Following conceptual definitional clarifications of state, nation and bureaucracy (public/civil service) at the beginning of Volume 1 (The Civil Service Pathway), Adegoroye asserts correctly that the civil service is a governance institution. Then, he proceeds to discuss the governance challenges for the civil service, including the functioning of civil servants in a constitutional democracy, effective coordination of the work of administration across MDAs, capacity challenge and integrity challenge. He also summarises the specific roles of civil servants in governance. These include: the workforce of government, the brain-box and institutional memory of the public sector, the bridge across administrations, and the guardian of public interest

He lays out with admirable clarity the shortcomings in the existing structure of MDAs and the assignment of ministerial portfolios and points up the key issues that need to be addressed. Regarding possible solutions, he draws on his extensive insider knowledge and familiarity with international good practices to recommend a maximum of eighteen (18) ministries. Strikingly, his recommendation is close to the nineteen (19) that President Buhari’s Transition Committee is reported to have recommended. The modifications he has proposed for strengthening and streamlining the administrative support for the president are sensible and deserve the attention of the Buhari administration. But I do not think Nigeria needs an Office of the First Lady (Chapter 15 of Vol. 1). I belong to the school of thought that would like the role of Nigeria’s First Lady to revert to what it was before the aberration of the Babangida military presidency.

Adegoroye devotes many chapters of Volume 1 and one of the two chapters in Volume 2 to the staffing and quality of the civil service at its upper stratum (directors, directors-general, and permanent secretaries) and the appointment as well as the functions of the leaders of the central human resources coordination offices – Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF), Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (OHCSF) and the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC). He provides strong evidence of poor human resources management, especially as it affects career progression through the directorate levels to the permanent secretary level. Unsurprisingly, a critical dimension to the poor quality of the civil service that he identifies is the problem of pervasive corruption, including collusion between higher civil servants and their political masters (ministers) in mismanaging the budgets of MDAs.

On the appointment of permanent secretaries (PSs), Adegoroye uses some illustrative cases to buttress his assertion that the merit principle is subordinated to patronage considerations, ethnicity and concern for state quotas that has favoured “transferees”, that is, officials who transferred from state civil services and federal prastatals to the civil service, especially since 1999. Evidence that the deployment of PSs is rarely related to their competence, cognate experience and seniority is the frequency of their posting during the last decade: a PS spends an average of 12 months in a ministry before he/she is deployed to another. This means that a minister who served the full four-year tenure of the immediate past president would have had to adjust to four different permanent secretaries. The record known to this reviewer is a PS who, in 24 months, has worked in five MDAs! Has the dysfunction in the federal civil service reached this astonishing level?

Unfortunately, the federal civil service also had seven heads between 2007 and 2014, that is, an average of 12-month tenure for each. Because the head of the civil service has the primary responsibility for the deployment (posting) of permanent secretaries to MDAs, the short tenure of each is the major explanation for the rapid turn-over of PSs and the negative consequences highlighted above. Furthermore, the limited results recorded by reform efforts aimed at improving performance in the civil service during the period is also due, in large part, to the inability of a succession of short-term heads with varying capabilities (summarised in fascinating pen-portraits in the book) to provide effective leadership.

Adegoroye would like the presidential appointment of PSs, Head of Service and chief executive officers of agencies, parastatals and corporations to involve prior screening by a Federal Public Service Council to be established by an Act. Notwithstanding some sound arguments he adduces to support this recommendation, utmost attention to the knowledge, experience and integrity of persons appointed as Head of Service (and I would add a four-year tenure, coterminous with that of a president) and the chair and members of the FCSC would be an effective solution. In the final analysis, the onus for ensuring quality leadership of the civil service is on the president: just as a people gets the government it deserves, there is a real sense in which a president gets the civil service he deserves.

However, regarding the corporations and parastatals, there would be need to either expand the mandate of the FCSC to cover them as recommended in the Oronsaye Report or resuscitate the Statutory Corporations Commission as advocated by Chief Philip Asiodu in his illuminating “Foreword” to the book.

The introduction of Tenure Policy in 2009 was intended to ensure steady career progression and leadership succession in the civil service. In the immediate, the policy was used to clear a peculiar mess in which career progression to the top posts of director and permanent secretary was blocked by long-serving directors and PSs, many of them in post for over ten years. Effective from January 2010, PSs and directors were to serve a four-year tenure renewable once for a total of eight years, subject to satisfactory performance. Notwithstanding Adegoroye’s stout defence of Tenure Policy, his frank critique of its implementation confirms this reviewer’s professional viewpoint that it should have been only an ad hoc measure to clear the existing mess.

Besides the non-implementation of tenure review before extension (similar to the widely-acknowledged challenge of reviewing contracted top bureaucrats in many countries), maintenance of the existing Tenure Policy fundamentally undermines the idea of a career service up to the director level. With the formal assimilation of PSs into the category of political appointees by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC Act (2008) on Salaries of Political Office Holders, the director level has become the peak of the career civil service. For directors who rise to that level after the normal 26 years prescribed by the FCSC, this would mean nine years of service before retirement by the 35-year service rule. And for genuine high-flyers, it could mean additional three years, making a total of twelve years at the director level. It would make eminent sense to reverse the application of Tenure Policy to directors effective from January 2016. And because PSs are political appointees that serve at the pleasure of a president, Tenure Policy becomes of limited applicability. For example, in June 1999 the new president retired 60 percent of PSs and seven were removed in 2005 for poor performance.

What Adegoroye’s book reveals about the problem of corruption in the civil service constitutes the justification for his assertion that “the civil service and the political class [are] the problem of Nigeria”. And he is in good company. According to Zulfikar Bhutto, a former Prime Minister of Pakistan, civil servants and politicians “form the managing personnel of the vast enterprise of getting rich through participation in authority” (cited in The Economist, Aug.22nd 1998). The sordid details of corrupt practices involving civil servants (on their own) and civil servants in collusion with political office holders in Chapters 5 and 9 of Volume 1 make very depressing reading. Closing all the leakages exposed and effective enforcement of extant rules and regulations for curbing corruption that are detailed in the book must feature prominently in the Anti-corruption Strategy that President Buhari has promised to make public before the end of his first 100 days, that is, before the end of 72 days from today.

Finally, Adegoroye’s overview of public service reform experience between 1999 and 2014 in Chapter 1 of Vol 2 (Leadership & Political Will) sheds light on why the problems he identifies in his book have persisted. And he provides some pointers to the way forward. Adegoroye asserts that compared to the success recorded in public service reform between 2004 and 2007, “there is now [in 2014] more rot to be cleared within the civil service system” (Vol 2, p. 66). However, according to him, by 2008, President Yar’Ardua had complained about inheriting a poor quality civil service (Vol. 2, p. 74). Concretely, then, only patchy achievements were recorded by the reform efforts carried out between 2004 and 2007, notably the widely-acknowledged “pockets of efficiency” such as the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Federal Capital Territory Authority (FCTA) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and in the core civil service, the successful introduction and implementation of Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) in six pilot MDAs. But the poor management of human resources, weak implementation capacity across MDAs and the problem of pervasive corruption in the civil service had not been solved by 2007.

Thus, it was against the backdrop of a persistently poor performing civil service that the Yar’Ardua administration directed the preparation of a comprehensive strategy for rebuilding the public service and transforming it into a world-class service that can implement government policies and deliver quality services to the public in the manner that regional and federal civil services had done from the late fifties through the 1960s to the mid-1970s. The National Strategy for Public Service Reform (NSPSR) was submitted to the federal government in January 2009. There is some overlap between the desirable next steps reforms highlighted by Adegoroye and the contents of the four-pronged strategy focused on an enabling institutional and governance environment, an enabling socio-economic environment, public financial management reform and civil service administration reform.

Although the Strategy was not formally approved, aspects of it (especially those focused on improving public financial management) were implemented continuously until the Strategy was refreshed and updated at the request of the Jonathan Administration in 2014. The Federal Government’s Steering Committee on Reform approved the updated NSPSR in March 2015. Making allowance for necessary modifications to the Strategy to take into account the new policy directions of the Buhari Administration, implementation of a Strategy to help the federal government rebuild and transform the civil service into a well-performing institution delivering quality service to the public should begin no later than January 2016.

Last word
The undisputable merit of this two-volume compendium is that it addresses an impressive range of issues relating to civil service and governance in Nigeria and the author provides thoughtful and sensible solutions to many of them. Significantly, too, he provides interesting “windows” on some aspects of current public administration history: a research report on geopolitical distribution of federal career and (non-career) political appointments and some appendices that would be of interest to both students and practitioners of Nigerian public administration. I recommend the book to them as well as to politicians who have the challenge of responding to the unfolding “change” promised by President Buhari. And I would like to stress that the politicians would need to abandon being part of the problem of governance and embrace being part of the solution.

I thank you all for your kind attention.

About the ReviewerLadipo Adamolekun is a Professor of Public Administration, a former Dean of the Faculty of Administration at the Obafemi Awolowo University and a former Lead Public Sector Management Specialist at the World Bank. He is currently an Independent Scholar.

]]>https://emotanafricana.com/2015/06/02/how-ibb-obasanjo-abacha-shared-nigerias-oil-wells-pointblanknews-com/feed/3emotanIBB-OBJ-ABACHABuhari’s tears are not for an ambition but for Nigeria – Tola Adenlehttps://emotanafricana.com/2015/04/05/buharis-tears-are-not-for-an-ambition-but-for-nigeria-tola-adenle/
https://emotanafricana.com/2015/04/05/buharis-tears-are-not-for-an-ambition-but-for-nigeria-tola-adenle/#commentsSun, 05 Apr 2015 00:13:03 +0000http://emotanafricana.com/?p=12519Being the 5th of essays from the 2011 election cycle period

First posted here as above title on April 14, 2011.

What a shame that the progressive camp cannot shelve whatever differences they have on the MINOR points against its going together come Saturday! I say ‘minor’ because the evil that the PDP represents are far greater than whatever little points – the fine print of the agreement – that seem to stand in the way of the coming together.

Retired General Muhammadu Buhari was not weeping that he would not rule Nigeria but his tears – I feel almost certain – were for a great opportunity that’s going to be missed. I have cried twice this week: first for joy when I heard the talks were on again and then, yesterday morning when I read of the breakdown. We should all be crying because for the PDP, we know it’s going to be business as usual. While a driver told me he would vote for Buhari because “he has no foreign account”, another driver put it in a way that would be understood by most Nigerians: “Jonathan is Obasanjo Fourth Term”! When I corrected him by saying that the “Third Term” project failed, he said: “Mommy, Yar Adua ni Third Term; Jonathan niFourth Term …” [‘ni’ in Yoruba is translates to the verb ‘is’]

Mark my word: generations yet unborn – and not just in Yorubaland but in the whole of the country – would not remember the leaders of the so-called progressive camp that tantalized citizens with a possibility only to fail to seize an opportunity that would have started this country on the road to greatness when the opportunity presented itself. IF the PDP, using its old template, manages to CAPTURE the presidency, then Nigeria’s long nightmare would have just begun. Looters; impunity kingpins; political adventurers with long rap sheets in America, Europe, Japan ascending to high positions; certificate forgers; killers as rulers, etcetera would finally take Nigeria to its knees.

Nigeria would join The Congo and other endowed African countries that have nothing to show as benefits to their people.

Personal ambitions must be sacrificed on the altar of the chance that presents itself. With reports in NEXT, it seems unbelievable that such a minor point as to who would be vice president would derail the merger talks.

Here is a radical suggestion that may not jive with reality on the Nigerian political ground IF we are serious about routing the PDP; it is a scenario I had discussed with others even before I read the NEXT revelations: Buhari runs with Bakare whom he had been campaigning with and they win. Buhari foregoes a second term – I’m almost sure he would agree; Tunde Bakare retires with his principal and goes back to pastoral duties. Nuhu Ribadu picks the ticket in 2015 and runs with whoever he thinks he can work with because by then, Nigeria would have been set on the path to greatness.

There must be variations of this out there but I believe not far from these must lie the solution that would bring hope to MOST Nigerians. Leaders must be able to feel the pulse of their followers and Nigerians by a clear majority in the millions want the PDP out; it now falls on those we believe have the masses’ interests at heart to act on that wish. They must make it work.

There are many other essays that can be found March and April 2011 but the following is squeezed in here as a pointer to how far we still have to travel in our quest for elections that will truly reflect the people’s will.

While we all pray for the repose of the souls of those who have died in the after-election violence and continue to ask for restraint and calm , I am working on my own comments of the “free and fair elections” which I thought would be ready by this morning. It should be before the day runs out.

While it is true that this was an improvement on past elections, statistics in the presidential elections beggar belief. Two examples: of the 14 million+ who supposedly registered in Yorubaland, only about 4.5 million turned out to vote, which represents under 33 percent of which an astounding 2.7 million voted for the much-hated within the region the ruling PDP.

Meanwhile, over in the Southeast, 7.5 million citizens supposedly registered out of which a little over 5 million voted, representing a bewildering 68.9 percent but the abracadabra does not stop there. Of the 5.075 million “voters”, 4.985 million cast their lot with the PDP while about 90,000 “voters” in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo States said ‘no’ to the PDP.

As Nigerians continue to rejoice over the hard-earned victory of real democracy, one thing we must keep in mind is how everything came to happen for the people’s wish to be achieved: a fed-up electorate that showed the world Nigerians are not “docile” as once perceived and announced to the world by Alhaji Dimeji Bankole while House Speaker. We must keep in mind, scary as the thought may be, that it almost did not happen. We must keep the feeling that drove us to say “enough is enough” very much alive by not leaving everything to politicians, no matter how well-intentioned they may be. While should not mean second-guessing people’s intention, it does mean we must not stand aloof and wait for things to fall into our collective laps.

The fifth year of the birth of this blog, a site that came into being from my frustrations with the ruling party’s brigandage and the seeming helplessness of we, the masses, just started. It was to give me a platform from which I can express my feelings, albeit responsibly, without the self-censorship journalists often exercise within news organizations although I never had an editor breathe down yell down by phone about what not to write or what causes to promote!

Because of the circumstances leading to its birth which finally came to a climax on its fourth anniversary, I decided to glance through postings of its first month which coincided with the height of the 2011 campaign for the elections.

I’ve picked five essays to air again, one for each of today, April 1 through Sunday, April 5. Those who fought hard to get us to where we are deserve commendations. These essays bring into sharp focus how easy it is to lose something that is within grasp and why, therefore, we must never relent to hold on tight to the new victory for all Nigerians. As a saying that has also been rendered in various form goes, “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance”, but a form I particularly like apart from the original by 19th Century abolitionist Wendel Phillips is Benjamin Franklin’s: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety”;

TOLA, APRIL 1, 2015.
Nigeria 2011 Elections: Nigeria Must be Rid of Cancer-like PDP
March 30, 2011 [First published in The Nation.]

Former publisher of the women’s bi-monthly, Emotan and op-ed columnist with The Nation, Tola Adenle now publishes her writing here.

Welcome to my blog. TOLA ADENLE, March 30, 2011.
==========

God willing, I will cast my presidential vote for retd. General Buhari and that is more than a personal quantum leap.

As recently as before the 2007 (s)elections sealed whatever shot retd. General Obasanjo (rGO) might have had at statesman-hood, I had wondered aloud in my rested weekly essays for this paper why General Buhari would not let Nigerians know what his feelings about democracy and religion were. I had a personal experience of the effort to force a state religion down Nigerians’ collective throat during his rulership. It was apparent that retd. General Babangida’s misadventure to turn Nigeria into a Muslim country was similar to Buhari’s. As I shopped at Old Gbagi, Ibadan, one afternoon in ‘84/85, a commotion suddenly developed as word went round that policemen were out arresting women who wore pants! I was a culprit and made for my car, unwilling to wait for verification in the then suffocating environment of religious fanaticism.

Who can forget the attempt by the Buhari’s government to introduce Soviet Russia-style exit visas for Nigerians who would want to travel outside the country? Or the callousness of the public executions of those drug couriers though it seemed to have stemmed the then growing menace? Thousands, mostly Christians have been killed since rGO’s presidency when a country’s supposed secular Constitution was p— upon by a governor whose Sharia declaration was an open challenge. I do not remember rGO’s government taking any legal action against this major assault on the country’s Constitution. Thereafter, the manageable national relationship between Christians and Moslems became a combustible situation that exploded anytime any event – even in far-off lands – displeases Northern Nigerian Muslims. To have Nigerians slaughtered because somebody in Scandinavia defaces Mohammed’s picture is unconscionable. Muslims and Christians have always coexisted peacefully in Southern Nigeria. Religion is not the cause but PDP-type politics.

The biggest problem confronting this country today, we are all agreed is corruption, and the ruling party has proved unable AND unwilling to fight the cancer nor enunciate a plan different from its eight messy years for a New Nigeria. An example of PDP’s governance style can be seen in the big Ogun mess with rGO reduced to less-than a tribal chieftain vs. Daniel as chief combatants. In the party’s typical style, luxe paint has been spread over structural damage; everybody is focused on the prize: PDP needs Daniel; so does he of the minority House members deliberating over the majority without any raised eyebrow at Abuja. PDP has amidst its ranks people with enough proverbial skeletons in various cupboards that would rival those of rested souls at Lagos’ Atan Cemetery. Those that hold the country by the jugular air these skeletons whenever upstart moneybags forget to remain in line. This “settlement” style, “we are one family”… eerily resembles the Italian Mafia’s “family”. Did scenes from Ogun and Anambra shrines where grown men were stripped naked at oath-taking bring the Mafia’s omerta to mind?

As the PDP goes from crisis to crisis with in-our-face implication that it needs us NOT, Nigerians must be ready to fight what would be another great robbery by the same group I called “Nigeria, Inc., as in Murder, Inc” back in ’03. The Southwest, landscape has been left desolate with leaders whose governance style is chasing shadows. Even me, “an elderly lady” as this paper’s Kunle Abimbola once aptly referred to me in an essay about Osun’s illegal 7-year “Governor” Oyinlola. The two expended millions shadow-chasing, seeing an enemy in me.

Here is the opening of my “PDP is Nigeria’s worst nightmare” of May 4, 2008: “On March 9, this column carried … PDP is Nigeria’s greatest impediment to democracy and the country’s very survival.“Every new day seems to show that a title that on the surface appeared hyperbolic might actually have been an understatement. While most Nigerians are beginning to realize that the massively-rigged retired General Obasanjo “election” was an evil…most had nevertheless hoped that Nigeria could rise from the ruins …if Alhaji Yar Adua was given the benefit of the doubt – in Nigerian-speak, if peace reigns in spite of the collective angst, democracy could somehow germinate …”

Buhari’s recent speech that implies he would condone his supporters going on rampage should the coming elections be rigged is not different from our own Late Uncle Bola’s colorful allusion to the 60’s conflagration. I do not remember his exact words but it was something like ki la ma nse s’eni t’o ba ji ibo? What does a vote rigger deserve? The masses in Ekiti chanted ‘rig and roast’ during rGO-selected Madam Ayoka Adebayo’s infamy in Ekiti; I’vealso seen a popular blogger’s moniker,rig2011electionanddie for well over a year on Sahara Reporters’ website. I believe in law and order but we cannot encourage people who are determined to stay in power through the barrel of the gun and other evil means to be confident of getting away with their crime again. As we have seen, the judiciary is as corrupt as the PDP to which most seem to owe allegiance. I’m not sure a wife and female daughters would be raped while the husband stands by and say prayers for God to forgive those destroying his family.

I think the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), must return to negotiations. The party’s presidential candidate is worthy like Buhari but we cannot take Nigeria back from despoliation having two worthy combatants with near-similar ideologies in opposing camps. The experience of Buhari matters. The youth of this country, surprisingly, is ready for Buhari. I’m conducting a very informal and unscientific poll among young professionals, all Christians, all Odua descendants and in two months, only two of forty-eight have repeated the time-worn ‘he’s a Muslim fanatic’; he’s not a democrat; he’s this, he’s that cliché. Hardly any of the contestants can sail through a rigorous examination. Who will provide the best leadership and who can steer the corruption-artists in the face and not blink? Those interviewed, all late 20s to early 40s, say they’ll checkmark the retired General’s name in April. Like thousands and thousands of families, I have accepted a life of semi-exile for me and perhaps, permanent exile for my kids but most Nigerians cannot even afford what is, at best, a life hardly worth living: exile by necessity to start, no matter how later comfortable, is awful. We therefore all owe a lot to make Nigeria work.

Buhari gave General Tunde Idiagbon of very blessed memory more than elbow room. We cannot doubt he would do the same with Pastor Tunde Bakare. The PDP is too large a monster to be left to continue to roam the land, and must be stopped.

]]>https://emotanafricana.com/2015/04/01/muhammadu-buharis-victory-finally-rids-nigeria-of-cancer-like-pdp-tola-adenle/feed/2emotanBUHARINIGERIA’S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS: It’s retired General Muhammadu Buhari for Nigeria’s presidency – Tola Adenlehttps://emotanafricana.com/2015/03/31/nigerias-presidential-elections-its-retired-general-muhammadu-buhari-for-nigerias-presidency-tola-adenle/
https://emotanafricana.com/2015/03/31/nigerias-presidential-elections-its-retired-general-muhammadu-buhari-for-nigerias-presidency-tola-adenle/#commentsTue, 31 Mar 2015 17:42:03 +0000http://emotanafricana.com/?p=12489Nigerians in most corners of the country are in wild jubilation as thrice-rejected former army ruler of the country wins in a landslide over the incumbent.

Buhari’s message of the APC party that he led to this historic in more ways than one resonated beyond his Northern Nigeria place of origin, an important issue in multi-ethnic and religious divide across the country enabling him to win not only Muslim votes but Christian votes.

What changed for this ascetic former army general who had ruled Nigeria as a military man before trying to rule it as a civilian this fourth time around?

Nigerians yearned for change. Change from a system that has become so intractably corrupt and with impunity during the sixteen years that the ruling PDP has been in power after the military era that it had become apparent that the party and its leadership had neither the capability nor willingness to confront the deep-rooted problems of the country.

While great hopes had been placed on retired General Obasanjo – if not his PDP as most Nigerians, if truth be told never really voted for the PDP when it “won” – when the country returned to civil rule in 1999, and while rGO did seem to want to take the country from her sorry past, he was, by his second term, a man determined to squander the goodwill and support of most Nigerians.
Before he left office in 2003 after an ill-fated quest for a “third term” that is not in the Nigerian Constitution, corruption had gotten to a proportion perhaps as bad as under Babangida and his predecessor, the late General Abacha. While the former General was never really fingered for personal corruption, he had become one of Nigeria’s wealthiest people by the time he left office. He personally emasculated corruption-fighting agencies that he instituted, using the same agencies to fight those opposed to his party and person while leaving well-known looters who belonged to the PDP.

The Nigerian political situation that Obasanjo left in 2003 was a very weak, chaos-ridden, corrupt, inept and poisoned atmosphere that needed redemption but it wouldn’t come because the former president ensured that would not happen.

His hand-picked successor, the late Umaru Yar Adua – also from Buhari’s Katsina State – though terminally ill to Obasanjo’s knowledge, had his road to the presidency drenched in Nigerians’ blood after a massively-rigged election followed by the slaughter of hundreds of Nigerians who dared protest the election results. It stands as Nigeria’s most-rigged election in history, and that is saying a whole lot. Yar Adua’s illness would throw the country into near-constitutional crisis when his illness finally saw him smuggled out of the country for overseas treatment where he would die.

Even when Rumors of his death were rife, Nigerians were never given the true picture of the state of his health but made-up stories of his “improvement” and even near-good health restoration were planted by his close aides through presidential spokesman, Sunday Adeniyi (a former newspaperman) in newspapers. Various people in society asked that a delegation be allowed to see a man who, despite being nearly dead in a Saudi hospital but supposed to be very much in tune with goings-on in Nigeria that his spokesman once told Nigerians he left Abuja to watch a Super Eagles (soccer) match in Southern Africa to the delight of his boss!

Meanwhile, his wife, Binta Yar Adua and an inner circle became the de facto rulers as his Vice President, the same Jonathan who would become substantial president after his death, was shut out of governance. After serving out his principal’s term for about two years, he would score a much-disputed win over Buhari in another Obasanjo’s subversion of the people’s will. In both administrations that made the present president complete his principal’s term and then as President who “won”, Jonathan never displayed he had the capacity to lead a country that is as vast with different nationalities with different values, as well as a country that has a myriad of problems as Nigeria. NOR the willingness to learn, even if a bit, on the job.

His seeming turning up his nose at corruption – he famously not only refused to declare his assets as demanded by the constitution; he once declared that stealing is not corruption, he has ministers and close associates who were openly corrupt. And he never let go of anybody, no matter how openly corrupt. Right now, one of his former ministers whose alleged corruption was of such a scale that should see the woman in jail after being finally being divested of her massive looting despite the president’s unwillingness to do so for quite a while, is headed to the Senate, having won a seat! His Petroleum minister has been accused of massive corruption since the time he took over from late Yar Adua but the woman not only served out that first (half) time but has always grown more powerful and confident enough to get court injunctions of one type or another NOT to appear before the legislative body to answer questions from lawmakers.

What changed the fortune of Buhari this time around having been resoundingly rejected three times? What changed the minds of millions of Nigerians, especially in Yoruba’s southwestern part of the country where, only four years ago, anybody voting for him would be labeled ‘traitor’ just as the same label is generously used today for any who would vote for Jonathan?

It is important for non-Nigerians to understand the fluidity – pardon me, the non-ideology-based way politics goes in Nigeria. For example, the guy who may win a governorship in the Muslim North next weekend was the presidential candidate of APC, the party (then ACN) that adopted Buhari from his CPN! The criss-crossing from party to party by candidates looking for vessels to achieve their selfish ends is so dizzying that it is clear most politicians in the country stand for nothing. Even Buhari has had to play the game of party-hopping in his three presidential attempts: he stood for elections in 2003 as the candidate of the APP, then the ANPP in 2007 both of which deserted him in a country where campaign funding limits exists perhaps only on paper, and Buhari does not have the money needed to prosecute an election. By 2011, he had to found his own party, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), when this blogger would see him – the way such is described in Nigeria – as the only “messiah” that could “slay the corruption monster, despite my previous publicly-held views about him. With no funds to back his quest, and appealing almost only to core Northern Muslims, CPC failed despite attempts to attract Southerners by choosing Pastor Tunde Bakare as running mate and brokering a deal that fell through on details with the Action Congress of Nigeria, now APC, his new home.

This time around, he got a Southern party with wide acceptance, structure and the financial resources in the southwest that Nigeria’s elections have become – most Hausa/Fulani of Nigeria’s core North voted massively for him in 2011 as they would vote for ANY of their own – Buhari’s fortune changed because he is known as – sort of – “not one of them”, by the usually-discerning south-westerners. Attempts to tar him with association he now supposedly keeps therefore struck no chord in the Yoruba voters that he must win to get to the presidency.

Everybody who voted for him – and even many who did not – know that he definitely is “not one of them.”
The impunity – President Jonathan once announced he doesn’t “give a damn”, the now-entrenched god-fatherism that the whole system has bred, the failure in governance at ALL levels, the poverty of the people, the corruption not only at “federal” – the word is an unfunny joke and I’ve not been one to use it without quotes for many years – but at every other level, made Nigerians by the millions hop on Buhari’s train of change with the leading opposition party, APC. His old party was never going to get him victory not only because it was seen as a Muslim party but Muhammadu Buhari’s past as a military man who supposedly was a non-believer in democratic rule was a big baggage.

To all Southerners, the ‘National Question’, the idea of having the country restructured did not interest Buhari, who, to Southerners, was an irredentist believer in the North’s supreme position deliberately created by the British at independence. To divide and therefore continue to be able to have a strong foothold in Nigeria, censuses since that time when most rulers have been from the North, have huge numbers assigned to the arid North while the heavily populated South (East & West) combined supposedly has less people. Travels far and wide within Nigeria by air, rail or land show the impossibility of old Kaduna State – now Kaduna & Katsina States, for example, having almost 3 MILLION PEOPLE MORE THAN OYO (location for Ibadan) & OSUN STATES put together. All these (and more from Iboland in the East) had locked him out of the Southern mostly Christian part of Nigeria. It must be mentioned that Yorubaland has millions of Muslims but the religion as practised in that part is not the same as the Northern variant, a very conservative Islam.

This time around, his known ascetic and upright way made the rejected stone the foundation’s cornerstone on which, hopefully, Nigerians can build a nation, a reality that has eluded a people in over a century of booby-trapped British-ordained union and more than half a century of independence.

Echoes of the Biafra War still continue to plague Nigerians’ relationships as confirmed by the vote from the [Ibo] Southeastern which went solidly to Jonathan. To build a real nation, this would have to be worked on in a true structural adjustment of the political landscape.

Nigerians look to retired General Muhammadu Buhari to harness the can-do, never-say-die, resilience, hardworking, resourcefulness and hard work of the typical Nigerian AND the stupendous wealth of the country to START the country on the road to a destination to which it should have arrived a long time ago judging from the money it has made. The wealth the country has made has ended up mostly in private pockets of top politicians and their associates, top civil servants and their associates as well as a few others within a circle I named “Nigeria, Inc.” back during Obasanjo’s second term.

Nigerians hope an administration of Buhari and his running mate, Professor Yemi Osibajo would take Nigeria from a land of wealth where private plane ownership is now so high as to rank in single digit position in the world to a country where, if you own such and your known income does not justify such, YOU WOULD HAVE TO BE PRESUMED CORRUPT AS IN THE SINGAPORE THAT RECENTLY-DECEASED LEE KUAN YEW FATHERED.

Nigerians are hoping that a Buhari Administration would work at restructuring the country so that the lopsidedness caused by a non-“federal” system that makes the presidency a do-or-die affair, a system that holds some sections down while the wealth of the country goes another way … is corrected.

Today is a happy occasion that should not be bogged down by the arduous task ahead but these hopes of a long-suffering people who wish for nothing more than what people in well-governed nations take as natural, must be put forward even as millions rejoice that Nigeria’s collective “long nightmare is over”. Those words of late President Ford on ascending the US presidency after President Nixon’s exit is apt today.

I congratulate Nigerians as I do Muhammadu Buhari & his running mate, the APC that gave Buhari to us and plead that Nigeria’s various peoples, states and religions be governed even-handedly. Never must a Nigerian need – as in the words of a young lady who, among ten randomly asked by a BBC reporter what she likes about her country said to the effect that her country is one in which anyone who knows someone in power can “make it”.

THAT is not a positive but a problem that needs to be eradicated.

This election has many firsts principal among which are an incumbent being dislodged not through a military coup by a challenger but through the will of the majority of the people, and to most Nigerians’ delight, I am confident, that we are all relieved that this first time of the ascendant of a presidentNOT imposed by the will of a Master Godfather OR through “army arrangement should lay a firm foundation for the future.” We can never forget Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, the genius of “Army Arrangement” and many other visionary prescient political utterances in his music.